How to clean red wheats to look there best

BC Buck · Jul 24, 2019

My soils in STL must be tough on coppers. Everything comes out of ground looking red. Soap water, toothbrush and not able to see much. Take to work and run through ultrasonic tank (ph1 for food grade) and under high magnification look like red barnacles on surface. Tried scraping, polishing, and tumbling in reloading tumbler using cob with poor results. Not barnacle but eroded copper surface. What technique do you guys use to clean red Penney?

T-Man · Jul 24, 2019

Could try electrolysis, alot threads on here for setting up a zap tank. May be worth a shot.

ToySoldier · Jul 24, 2019

BC Buck said:
My soils in STL must be tough on coppers. Everything comes out of ground looking red. Soap water, toothbrush and not able to see much. Take to work and run through ultrasonic tank (ph1 for food grade) and under high magnification look like red barnacles on surface. Tried scraping, polishing, and tumbling in reloading tumbler using cob with poor results. Not barnacle but eroded copper surface. What technique do you guys use to clean red Penney?

When they're as you described, there isn't much I've ever been able to do. There's no pretty green or brown patina hiding under all of that corrosion. Just bare metal. Whatever you do to get down to it is going to lose most of the details.

Sometimes all you can do is clean them with a toothpick or wooden skewer and soft dry toothbrush. If you rinse off the remaining dirt it can look worse. That remaining dirt in the edges, nooks and crannies provides contrast and can actually help you see details.

amc rulz · Jul 26, 2019

Why even bother? Tumble it and dump it with the rest in a coin counter.

Foragist · Aug 1, 2019

Yep. Some old pennies will just never look good at all. Sad but true. For wheats, my current method is: let them dry, then scrub off as much dirt & corrosion as you can with a sharp toothpick, then tumble in dry walnut shell media. After an hour or so of tumbling, I pull out the ones that look done enough, and tumble the rest longer. Many end up in poor condition, but still "at their best". Some turn out very nice looking "at their best".

georgeinsc · Aug 6, 2019

I suspect you are trying to clean up modern zinc pennies that have started corroding. Not going to happen. I clean them up as best as possible by tumbling them and then I take them and run them thru the coin counter at my credit union. If the get rejected three times I throw them in the trash. Zinc from the salt water beaches are even worse than what get dug from dirt.

SmirkAtTheMerc · Aug 6, 2019

I use Bar Keepers Friend on silver

SmirkAtTheMerc · Aug 6, 2019

I used electrolysis on dirty copper penny, and it came out looking like a brand new zinc penny!

How to clean red wheats to look there best

BC Buck

Junior Member

T-Man

Elite Member

ToySoldier

amc rulz

Foragist

georgeinsc

Elite Member

SmirkAtTheMerc

Elite Member

SmirkAtTheMerc

Elite Member

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